the two “P” words….

Can you think of two words that start with “p” and fit together perfectly?

And no, all you innately sexual creatures, once again, I am not thinking of “that”. Remember, I told you before, this is not the place for sexually wanton writing, yet somehow ever since I said that, innuendo continues to appear.

The two seldom verbalized or admitted, but often practiced words, are the reason I have been away from my blog the last seventeen days. Of course I’m referring to procrastination and perfectionism. Usually when I am away from my blog for awhile it is because of one or the other, or both.

Recently I wrote a 2500 word short story for a timed international writing contest, NYC Midnight. One of my Underground Writing Cohort friends had tempted me to give it a whirl. I had a week to complete and submit the story after being assigned a genre, character, and a specific subject to be included.

Thanks to doing the story for the contest I became more self-aware. I discovered I can procrastinate perfectly. I never considered myself a perfectionist before. I now realized I was obviously wrong.

To be fair, the first three days I did have a migraine headache. Apparently people who have Sjogren’s are also prone to migraines at a more frequent rate than other migraine sufferers; hooray for us. Mine start by feeling like a vague sinus headache then build up to full frontal facial pain for three days. Needless to say pain encompassing my entire face is not conducive to my creative pursuits. So, right off the get go I was down to four days.

While I wasn’t sitting at my computer typing out my story I WAS doing what I do best – writing the story in my head. I told Mr. Wanton it would be extremely helpful to me if he, of technological expertise and mechanical invention, could possibly come up with something that could transcribe my thoughts automatically into a word document on my computer. You know, like verbal word transcription, but for my thoughts. He said “that is a bad, bad, idea.” What does he know? Oh yah, I usually tell him what I am thinking. Perhaps his opinion is of value in this instance.

Upon the end of the headache I should have been ready to type up my story, right? Wrong. For the next few days I proceeded to attack my long lost to-do list with a vengeance – the one that sits permanently on my desk, with items dating back to 1999, not all of which are crossed off yet.

Wow – more self-awareness – if I wanted to finally accomplish my least appealing tasks, the long overdue “leftovers” on my to-do list, all I had to do is commit myself to something I wanted to do even less, in this case the short story.

Perfect. I could put off the short story writing, not feeling guilty whatsoever, because I was getting lots of other stuff done. You know, important stuff – like organize my panties and socks, look up random symptoms via Google, watch Adele and Bruno Mars “Careoke” videos on YouTube repeatedly (okay, admittedly that wasn’t on my to-do list but in hindsight it should have been). I accidentally discovered the most seriously underrated motivational technique for overcoming procrastination ever.

So that brings me to this moment. How did I get over my procrastination to write a blog post today? Easy answer, the alternative was the now top priority item on my to-do list – personal income tax. Uh-huh, I definitely found what I can do perfectly every time.

P.S. In case you are curious, I did complete the short story in eight hours on the seventh day, well before the midnight deadline.

haha your mind goes in the gutter more than mine! The first two words I thought of were pretty please!! lol Congrats on pushing through and getting the short story completed in time. I was busting my buttons with pride to hear that my dear friend overcame all obstacles and completed the task with the closest dead line. 🙂

Hello Sue – thanks for stopping by my blog, and for the congratulations regarding completion of my short story. I will have to let you read it after I get the feedback on it from “the judges”. It was partly (vaguely) inspired by the unlucky green panties and the resulting conversation at book club re: lucky underwear! 😀

I love this! This is soooo me. And we both LOVE writing — we really do! How do we manage to get anything written? Ahh…but we do. And I’m proud of you. Got yer tadoo list done AND a great story. Life is good!

Hello Claudia – thanks for stopping by. I know I should set myself a set time to write each day and develop a writing routine, but I am just too random abstract a person to be confined by routine! 😀 Now that I don’t have a work schedule, or one for my kids with school and activities, I like to do what I want, when I want – joys of being an older woman, right? But not always the best for the old tadoo (like your word!) list or writing faithfully.

I always love your blog! I too had the idea that something needs to go directly from my brain ( where all those wonderful ideas and perfect speeches are hidden) to written form so I can go back to sleep. You knew that you did not need all that time to write a story anyway, right?

I cannot say I “enjoy” the adrenaline rushing of a looming deadline, but apparently I am not that adverse to it either! 😉 Thanks for stopping by to read my blog, and confessing you suffer from the double “p’s” too.

Good luck with your writing contest Suzanne. Hey you might be interested in checking out a contest from Oprah Winfrey. You could win a cruise by writing a small story about yourself. Full details on entry form. Check out oprahs contest. Search on google. Love ready your wanton word posts all the time. Great job.Luv & hugs.

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Enjoy tossing out words recklessly and playfully! Believe in magic of blue-green elixir and word balms. Dabbling abstract artist, writer of poetry that does not rhyme & stories that may or may not be true.